Chairman Of Spalding Board Of Elections Responds To Allegations

From the Chairman’s Seat 

Ben M Johnson 

Spalding Board of Elections 

In light of allegations made over the past few months against the current Spalding County Board of Elections, of which I am honored to serve as Chairman, I wanted to take the opportunity to directly address some of the concerns voiced by voters of Spalding County, for whom we serve. Some within our community who are unhappy with changes to the current makeup of the board that was triggered by the passage of HB 769, which essentially rewrote the bylaws of the Spalding County BOE and was compounded by the sweeping changes in election policy and voting procedural changes we have implemented as a result of SB 202, also known as the “Election Integrity Act of 2021”, which went into effect on March 25, 2021. 

These kinds of disagreements between constituents are a part of any healthy representative republican form of government, as Georgia’s and our nation’s founders expected. However, there exists a line between opposing parties engaged in passionate but respectful debate and hateful insults and defamatory rhetoric directed towards opposing sides, and that line has been crossed. In the interest of ensuring that all voices are heard, and not just those that are the loudest, I wanted to speak directly to the voters of Spalding County on behalf of the Board of Elections in response to some of the most disrespectful and insulting allegations that have been made against both individual board members, and the board as a whole. 

The members of the Spalding County Board of Elections (BOE) took an oath to serve in the interests of ALL eligible voters of Spalding County and the Cities of Griffin and Orchard Hill. In that oath, we swore to uphold not only the Georgia State Constitution, but the Constitution for the United States, which in the 14th Amendment, guarantees the right of equal protection under the law for ALL citizens, not just those with whom we may agree or disagree politically. Anyone who states directly or even rhetorically that the actions of this board or its members are intended to marginalize or deprive one group of eligible voters to the benefit of another is outright lying and you should take a close look to examine their motives by making such defamatory and divisive comments. As I’ve stated publicly, repeatedly, there’s no room for politics in the conducting of Elections. 

Articles published by corporate media outlets like Reuters, which are then picked up and parroted by additional media outlets like MSNBC and The Daily Beast, and which referenced the recent actions taken by the Spalding County BOE as being racially motivated are lies. They knew when publishing such things that they were not true but as is the case more often than not, the intent was never to tell the truth. 

Seeing as I try to find something positive to take away from anything that affects me, I can say that I am encouraged that as recently as November 2021, the Traditional Media Trust Index hit new lows, with only 38.8% of Americans saying that they trust the Legacy Media to be objective and fair in their reporting. So to the other 61.2% of Americans, the dishonest, misleading, racially inflammatory, and factually wrong reporting about the Spalding BOE actions is not likely to have surprised you. 

While I am speaking to ALL Spalding County voters who we serve equally, I am particularly speaking to anyone who has been deceived into believing the lies perpetrated by national and local persons and media about the intentions and motives of this board and its members. 

Sunday Voting 

The contention publicly made that “Sunday Voting is a Long-Standing Tradition in the South” is a lie. The claims that the Spalding County BOE “took away Sunday voting” is also a lie. Sunday voting before an election day did not start in Georgia until 2014 and has been used only a handful of times in Spalding County but those facts did not factor into the removal of Sunday voting. Sunday voting was removed pursuant to GA Senate Bill 202, which in Section 2(b) that addresses equity in opportunity for advance voting, states that because more than 100 of Georgia’s 159 counties have never offered voting on Sunday, with many counties offering only a single day of weekend voting, then requiring two Saturday voting days and two optional Sunday voting days dramatically increases the total number of available voting hours across the state, in all counties, for all electors. 

The optional Sunday voting days are intended to be used in the event that there are extended wait times to vote, necessitating the addition of the optional advance voting days. Spalding County does not and has not had any extended wait times at polling locations to as yet justify the addition of the optional Sunday overflow advance voting days. The only time during the 2020 election that there were any significant delays at polling locations in Spalding, Fayette, and Morgan Counties was from what former Spalding BOE Supervisor, Marcia Ridley, called a “technical glitch” that caused the voting machines to crash for several hours, which she states occurred because of something Dominion Voting Systems uploaded the night before in violation of state election laws. 

The intentionally false and racially inflammatory allegation that Sunday voting was removed by the Spalding BOE to deter the 38% of Spalding County voters who are black is both insulting to that 38% of the Spalding County electorate and to the BOE who made the change pursuant to Georgia election law. Those claiming that black voters in Spalding County are incapable of voting on the available and mandated advanced/early voting days, or on election day, as their rationale for adding Sunday voting are insulting the intelligence of the group of Spalding voters for whom they claim to speak. 

Alternately, even if the Spalding BOE did vote to add Sunday voting based on the justification of being beneficial to one specific racial demographic of voters, then that in and of itself would be in violation of the oaths we took to uphold the rights of every individual voter and to not put the needs or preferences of any subgroup of voters above the needs of any others. Equal representation under GA law and the 14th Amendment means equal representation regardless of any demographic factors and we will always adhere to our oaths in this, and all, regards. 

Removal of Prior Spalding County Board Members 

The contention made publicly that the removal of prior Spalding County BOE members and the prior Elections Supervisor was based on race is an intentionally insulting and racially inflammatory lie. The lie is nothing short of political grandstanding via the ad nauseum labeling of anything adverse to their desires of being “racist”. These defamatory statements are intended to undermine the actions of specifically, the Republican members of the Spalding County BOE. 

As was the case with actions taken involving Sunday voting, the changes to the makeup of the Spalding BOE were the result of required provisions included in Georgia Senate Bill 202 along with resignations of BOE members not directly impacted by SB 202. Spalding County has a 5-person Board of Elections. Prior to the 2021 changes to the Spalding County BOE, the board contained a majority of three black female Democrat board members and a black female Democrat election supervisor. SB 202 stipulates that the political parties still get to choose two board members each, with the 5th member appointed by a local judge, whereas this was previously determined via coin-flip. 

Since there were three Democrat representatives on the Spalding BOE, one of them, Vera McIntosh, was replaced by Republican James Newland in adherence to the new law. The other two Democrat BOE members, outgoing Chairman, Margaret Bentley, and outgoing Secretary, Glenda Henley, quit their positions on the Spalding BOE in protest of SB 202 and what they called "harassment” by “Trump supporters” at BOE meetings for seeking redress for the fraud that occurred in the 2020 election. Bentley and Henley were replaced by Democrat representatives Jim O’Brien and Alfred Jester. I was then appointed to the Board, and subsequently, unanimously, elected Chairman of the Spalding County BOE. 

Additionally, Kimberly Slaughter was also appointed to replace Spalding County Elections Supervisor, Marcia Ridley, who was removed from the position by legislative action when the GA legislature passed House Bill 769, which made her ineligible to serve as Elections Supervisor since she is not a resident of Spalding County. Again, this change had nothing to do with the race of the individuals involved and was due entirely to the application of Georgia law. However, what has become apparent is that Ms. Ridley should have been removed anyway due to her gross incompetence and maladministration of the November 2020 general election. 

What is largely unknown because of the partisan media’s refusal to cover such things is that the State Election Board found overwhelming evidence to support felony-level malfeasance and maladministration by Ms. Ridley, about whose actions, as of August 17, 2021, there have been referrals for more than 400 individual elections violations to Georgia Attorney General, Chris Carr’s office. However, to the surprise of exactly no one paying attention in the 15 months since the 2020 election, the Attorney General’s office has yet to publicly take any action about those violations. 

Furthermore, since I assumed the Chairmanship of the Spalding BOE in July of 2021, we have found evidence of numerous additional potential violations of election law and election malfeasance that have yet to be investigated by the Secretary of State’s office. 

Election Integrity 

The Spalding BOE has also had more than 2,000 petitions flood our office, with over 50 individual demands from Spalding County Voters, demanding the Board of Elections to take real, meaningful action to restore the confidence of Spalding voters in the county’s ability to properly conduct fair, open, and transparent election. 

One of the ONLY things following the November 2020 election that GA Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, Governor Brian Kemp, and our local legislative representatives all agreed upon was that Marcia Ridley should have stepped down or been removed immediately following her mishandling of the administration of the November 2020 general election. What is clear to me based on the feedback from the Spalding County voters that has been received is that unless meaningful action is taken to determine the full extent of the effects that Marcia Ridley’s actions had on the 2020 election and the 2021 Senate runoff in our county, then all future elections administered involving the Spalding County Board of Elections, and the State of Georgia as a whole, will forever have a cloud of uncertainty hanging over the Spalding BOE. 

Election integrity is not now and should never be a partisan, or especially a racial issue. Every legal voter in Spalding County, the State of Georgia, and all 3,142 counties or parishes that constitute the United States of America should have NO doubt that their elected and appointed elections administrative officials are exhaustively working to ensure that not only they are able to vote if eligible, but that they are provided equal access to vote under the law. 

As Chairman of the Spalding County Board of Elections, I want to know that each of you has confidence that partisan differences have been set aside by this board in order to ensure that every single voter who wants to vote, and is eligible to vote, is given equal protection of their right to cast your vote in our county elections free of bias, interference, and favoritism regardless demographics. Each person should be able to cast their vote equally and with the confidence that their voice has been heard and counted as they intend it to be heard. To these ends, we will continue to work for ALL the voters of Spalding County who have entrusted us with such vital duties and responsibilities on your behalf. God Bless America and may God continue to bless the incredible citizens that make up Spalding County.